The number of obese individuals, more particularly in developed countries, continues to grow.
The risks brought about by obesity are numerous. In particular, it is known that obesity increases cardiometabolic risk, which refers to the presence in an individual of several clinical and biological signs that increase the risk of heart disease, cardiovascular accidents, and type 2 diabetes.
In the case of morbid and severe obesity, it may be necessary to resort to bariatric surgery, which makes it possible to restrict the absorption of food, in particular by reducing the gastric capacity, thus reducing the daily caloric supply, or by causing a malabsorption.
There are several types of bariatric surgery interventions, such as the insertion of a ring, sleeve, biliopancreatic diversion, or bypass. All of these techniques, which are applied by incision of the abdominal wall for laparoscopic surgery, are difficult to implement, because the presence of visceral body fat around the liver and liver steatosis hamper the surgeon during his intervention by limiting access to the stomach.
This is why it is essential, during a bariatric pre-operative phase, to be able to reduce visceral fat and the size of the steatosic liver because it is known that severely obese patients have non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH.
The current solution consists in imposing a strict diet on the patient who will undergo the intervention. However, this diet is difficult to follow for the patient who will undergo the intervention and also brings about risks of hepatic stenosis. In addition, it is demonstrated that this kind of regimen aggravates food compulsions and the tendency toward depression by increasing the tryptophan deficiency already existing in the obese individual, caused by chronic inflammation and stress. Finally, this diet aggravates the symptomatic deficiencies of overweight individuals.
Furthermore, the obese individuals suffer from numerous deficiencies of micronutrients, in particular anti-inflammatory micronutrients such as zinc, chromium, omega-3 fatty acids, arginine, and taurine, which interfere with healing. In addition, with abdominal obesity, the patients have a high fibrogen level promoting the incidence of post-operative thrombosis.
Finally, the patient arrives in the operating room with a significant stress level that is added to his natural stress level.
All of these phenomena linked to the state of obesity of the patient will accentuate the difficulties of bariatric intervention if they are not treated, and a strict diet, at less than 800 kcal/day, before the operation will only aggravate them.
In addition, it is essential that the loss of weight before the operation is not reflected by a loss in lean body mass because after the intervention, the loss of several kilograms per week will be reflected by a significant loss of lean body mass that affects the basic metabolism and often brings about a regaining of weight. In addition, the reduction of lean body mass also affects an organ such as the heart, which can be dangerous during anesthesia and during the intervention in general.
There is therefore a need for a solution that is effective, natural, and easy to use, which is able to reduce the visceral fat specifically and to respond to deficiencies and shortcomings in obese individuals during the pre-operative phase of a bariatric surgical intervention.